Automated Timesheets & Payroll for Trade Businesses
Eliminate Friday afternoon timesheet chasing. GPS-based clock-in, automated hour calculations, and hours sent to payroll without re-keying, so your team gets paid right, on time.
Used by
- Payroll Officer
- Administrative Assistant
- Office Administrator
How to get this live in your business
Free. The Timesheet Check Build Standard: the objects, the checks in order, and the pass test.
Ready for
It is Friday afternoon and payroll is waiting on three people still on site and one who wrote his hours on the back of a delivery docket. Everybody involved would rather be doing something else, the numbers get rounded to whatever ends the conversation fastest, and the same thing happens next Friday.
In short
- The problem
- Payroll waits on three people still on site and one who wrote his hours on the back of a delivery docket.
- Why it persists
- Everybody involved would rather be doing something else, so the numbers get rounded to whatever ends the conversation fastest.
- What we would automate
- Capture on site, the hour and allowance calculations, and the sync into payroll, so Friday becomes a review rather than a search.
- What stays with a person
- Final payroll approval, and the chat about the hours that look wrong.
Take the spec to Claude, ChatGPT or Copilot. The sentence to paste is one click away.
Want the whole thing by email?
This paper, plus the rest of the library. One click to stop them.
1. The Timesheet Problem
Ask any trade business owner what they dread most and “chasing timesheets” is near the top. Techs forget to log hours, write illegible entries, round up, or submit days late. The office then spends hours reconciling, cross-referencing job records, and manually entering into payroll.
Every rounded-up hour is an overpayment nobody will ever find, and every missed one is an underpayment that becomes a Fair Work problem. Then add the admin hours burned every Friday afternoon: time your office staff could spend on quoting, scheduling, or customer follow-ups.
The bottom line
Manual timesheets are slow, inaccurate, and expensive. GPS-based automation eliminates the guesswork and gives you real-time visibility into labour costs per job, without chasing a single tech.
2. How Automated Timesheets Work
The entire process runs in the background: no manual input required from your techs. Here’s the flow:
- 1
Tech arrives at job site
GPS geofence triggers automatic clock-in when the tech enters the job site boundary.
- 2
Job management system records start time
The clock-in event is logged against the specific job in your job management platform.
- 3
Tech completes the job
Clock-out is triggered when the tech leaves the geofence or marks the job complete.
- 4
Hours calculated automatically
Travel time, breaks, and overtime are calculated based on your award rules and business policies.
- 5
Data flows to payroll
Verified hours sync directly into Xero, MYOB, or KeyPay: pay run ready with one click.
3. Key Benefits
GPS-Verified Clock-In/Out
No more honour system. Geofence-based tracking confirms your techs are on-site before the clock starts ticking.
Automatic Overtime Calculation
Weekday, Saturday, Sunday, and public holiday rates are applied automatically based on your award or EBA rules.
Travel Time Tracking
Separate billable vs non-billable travel time. Know exactly how long techs spend driving between jobs.
Break Compliance
Ensures lunch breaks are logged per Fair Work requirements. Flags missed breaks before they become a compliance issue.
Hours Straight to Payroll
Hours flow directly into Xero or MYOB payroll. No manual data entry, no spreadsheets, no double-handling.
Reduced Payroll Errors
No manual data entry means no transposition mistakes. Every hour is GPS-verified and system-calculated.
Real-Time Labour Cost per Job
See exactly how much labour each job consumed as it happens, not weeks later when the timesheet finally arrives.
Award Interpretation
Automatic penalty rate calculation for EBA and award conditions. No more manual rate lookups or spreadsheet formulas.
4. End-to-End Workflow
From job assignment to STP reporting, every step is automated, auditable, and visible in real time.
5. Getting Started
You don’t need to rip and replace your existing systems. Here’s a pragmatic four-step path to automated timesheets and payroll.
- 1
Set up GPS geofences
Create geofences for your common job sites and your depot. Most time-tracking tools let you define these as a radius around an address.
- 2
Connect time tracking to job management
Link your time-tracking tool (e.g. Tanda, Deputy, or ServiceM8 staff tracking) to your job management platform so hours are recorded against specific jobs.
- 3
Configure overtime and penalty rate rules
Set up your award or EBA conditions: weekday rates, Saturday rates, Sunday rates, public holiday rates, and overtime thresholds. The system applies them automatically.
- 4
Link to payroll for automatic sync
Connect the pipeline to Xero Payroll, MYOB, or KeyPay. Verified hours flow straight into your pay run: review, approve, and pay in one click.
Payroll is yours to run. The phone can be ours.
We do not sell a timesheet system: the method above is the whole of it. What we run for trades is the after-hours call, answered on your number with the job written into ServiceM8 or Simpro before the caller hangs up. Booked After Hours, $119 a month, flat, no call caps.
Technical? The build standard is open. Take it.